nervousness I
felt about it. I am entirely misplaced in the character, and can do
nothing with it that might not be better done by almost any younger
woman with a sweet voice and that order of fair beauty which one cannot
separate from one's idea of Ophelia.

I have read Stanley's sermon on St. Peter, and am enchanted with it, and
more than ever struck with the resemblance, in its general spirit, and
even in actual passages, to my friend Mr. Furness's book. The notes and
commentary upon the sermon are the part of Stanley's work that show more
erudition and literary power than Mr. Furness's treatise contained, but
the manner and matter of the writers shows close kindred when treating
of the same subjects.

We overflow here with anecdotes of the hairbreadth escapes of the French
fugitives. Guizot and Madame de Lieven, his dear friend and evil genius,
arrived both in London on the same day, having travelled from Paris in
the same railroad train as far as Amiens; she with the painter Roberts,
passing as his wife, and Guizot so disguised that she did not recognize
him, and would not believe Lord Holland when he called upon her on
Saturday and told her that Guizot had arrived like herself, and by the
same train, the day before. Hotels and private houses are thronged with
French and English tumbling over, a perfect stampede, from the other
side of the Channel. Lady Dufferin, who during her long stay in Paris
made many French friends, is exercising hospitality to the tune of
having thirty people in her house in Brook Street.

Charles Greville showed me on Saturday a capital letter of Lord
Clarendon's upon the subject of his kingdom [he was Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland at this time], and the probable and possible effects of this
French Revolution on your quiet, orderly, well-principled countrymen. He
also showed me a letter he had received from E---- from Rome, in which,
I think, the account of the pope is that of a man being carried off his
legs by the popular exigencies, which he _cannot_ resist and at the same
time remain pope--the head of the priestly Roman Catholic Government.

Yesterday came news that _Metternich had resigned_. If this is true, the
forward step Italy is about to take need not, please God! be made in
blood and violent social upheaving. I do pray that this news may be
true, for it will probably avert a fire-and-sword revolution in the
Milanese, and all through Lombardy, in which Piedmont would sympathize